


Interludes

by wineandpencils



Series: Dragon Wishes and Piecrust Promises [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11113290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wineandpencils/pseuds/wineandpencils
Summary: Sometimes, Shiro can’t help but think: I’m not a good person





	Interludes

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Chap. 2

Sometimes, Shiro can’t help but think: _I’m not a good person_.

He thinks, maybe, before _then_ , before the Galra, he was good. He knows he _has_ to have been good—he remembers Keith, remembers laughing with him, remembers staying up after hours just chatting away the night even though they had early morning inspections. Before that…He can’t remember ever being intentionally mean growing up. He thinks he was mostly kind; he has a few memories of standing up to bullies in school, of sharing his lunch with a friend, of helping his grandmother carry produce from the market. But those memories are hazy in a way they probably shouldn’t be. (Keith had looked at him, eyes wide and startled, when Shiro had once admitted that it was hard for him to remember things before his abduction, how sometimes he couldn’t remember his parents’ names, how sometimes he wondered if his arm wasn’t the only thing the Galra took from him. Keith isn’t a crier. He’s hardwired to get angry and punch things but that night, Shiro hadn’t missed Keith’s quiet sniffles in the darkness of their room.)   

Yet.

Shiro has done a lot of things he’s not proud of. He’s killed people. So many. _Hundreds_ , a spiteful voice whispers in his mind whenever he wakes in the late hours of the night, plagued by nightmares that are more memory than dream. Once, in a fit of madness ( _guilt, so so guilty)_ , Shiro had done the math: he’d been missing for a year. Apart from those first few weeks, he’d been expected in the ring at least twice a week. Regularly. Without fail. One of the prisoners Voltron had saved all those months ago had told him when he’d asked, had explained how the system worked: the prisoners who hadn’t been sent to labor camps  were divided into cell blocks on various ships, a mix of species and genders and ages, from young to old. Ships needed labor to keep them running and clean and most of the captives did manual labor across the ship. Other prisoners were chosen at night by high ranking generals and whisked away, only to return in the mornings (or sometimes days after), limping and bruised, gazes empty. Then there were the champions.

Every cell block had a champion, someone to fight for them. If their champion succeeded, it meant food and water for the week. It meant a few days reprieve for the champion, meant medical care if the injuries were severe enough, meant gifts like weapon upgrades in the ring (and they’d looked at Shiro’s arm then, a look that said it hadn’t been the result of _medical care_ , that it’d been a _gift_ ). 

Early on, losing had meant no food and going back into the ring the very next day. The Galra had gotten bored of that quickly enough, champions too weak to do much more than pant and stagger around the ring. It wasn’t long before meant death.

So Shiro did the math. Fifty-two weeks in the year. For one year. Twice a week at least. Multiple opponents more often than not.

He hadn’t killed every time, no. But when he flashes back to the ring, it’s to images of blood on his hands, the sick feeling of _victory_ coursing through him. He wants to say he did it for his cell block, for the near hundred lives that depended on him. But it’s not true.

He did it for himself.

Did it so he could live. So he could survive. So he could eat and live to see another day.

He hasn’t made peace with that part of himself, but he’s come to terms with it, realized that in war, there often isn’t room for integrity. But there were other things too. (Once, the guards had brought in a meal, the first after three days of nothing. It’d been meat. Shiro had been a vegetarian before the Galra but he’d learned quickly that meals were precious and he couldn’t afford to turn up his nose when his next meal wasn’t guaranteed. He’d dug into the hot food like everyone else, slipping away a few pieces from his own plate for one of the kids in the cell next door, the one who’d used to cry from hunger but had gone quiet, silent in the past weeks. It was only after everyone had eaten that the guards laughed and told them what it was. And Shiro—Shiro had retched and choked like the rest of the prisoners, but he hadn’t been able to throw up because no matter what—or _who_ —he’d eaten, a deeper part of him had known that losing in the ring because of hunger wasn’t an option.) 

So no. Shiro wasn’t a good person under the Galra. But he’d been _good_ as a paladin, saving prisoners and protecting the universe.

And it all crumbles away with Lance. All thoughts of doing the right thing seem pointless, not when Lance is kneeling before him, eyes wide and afraid, bottom lip trembling ever so slightly and all Shiro can think of are those moments when he lets himself wonder what’d be like to hold Lance close. (He’s dreamt about it, what it would be like to bury his nose in Lance’s neck and just _breathe_ until everything else emptied out of him.) And Lance…when Lance shatters beneath his hands, like the perfect breaking of a delicate thing, something dark and possessive fills Shiro, makes him growl and push harder, thrust _deeper_ , as if he can mark Lance somewhere so deep within him that Shiro will never leave. And Lance takes it, calls him _Alpha_ , passes out—and Shiro can’t stop. Simply waits for his knot to die down before he flips him and enters him again, biting and sucking dark bruises whenever he can. He knows he should stop, _knows it_. But he can’t. He won’t. 

Once upon a time, Shiro was a good person.

But not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Been on a hiatus for a bit, due to my brother being diagnosed with and passing from cancer but hoping this interlude will get me back on track with writing. I certainly haven't abandoned DW&PP and intend to continue with it, just bear with me y'all.


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